ĸylo ren (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sololoquy) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
epidemiology2016-10-06 08:44 pm
sololoquy) wrote in epidemiology2016-10-06 08:44 pm
Entry tags:
(no subject)
CHARACTERS: Kylo Ren and YOU
DATE: Early October.
WARNINGS: Potential roughhousing
SUMMARY: Fighting crime isn't really his schtick, but its an easy way to fix an anger problem.
[His father was a smuggler, once. When he was young, Han Solo had told him stories until he grew too old to be impressed by them any longer. It had been a simpler time. That period of life had been short.
Years as an enforcer of the First Order's will had put him in contact with enough people who knew how to put up a fight for their lives. Kylo Ren cannot be told to stay within city limits -- he'd always been free to roam the galaxy, whenever his presence was not needed for one thing or another, and he isn't about to be tied down because of a few so-called bandits.
He's already encountered one group of them near one of the mines and had dealt with them when they had made the mistake of attempting to turn on him. This is when he addresses the Audentes at large, but he doesn't vacate the area quickly. After all, he hardly reached city limits before coming in contact with them. Perhaps there were more -- and so he hunts, lightsaber in hand but deactivated.
But the moment he hears or senses someone get to close to him, he will hold it out and threaten with its activation, regardless of who comes up on him.]
I am busy.
DATE: Early October.
WARNINGS: Potential roughhousing
SUMMARY: Fighting crime isn't really his schtick, but its an easy way to fix an anger problem.
[His father was a smuggler, once. When he was young, Han Solo had told him stories until he grew too old to be impressed by them any longer. It had been a simpler time. That period of life had been short.
Years as an enforcer of the First Order's will had put him in contact with enough people who knew how to put up a fight for their lives. Kylo Ren cannot be told to stay within city limits -- he'd always been free to roam the galaxy, whenever his presence was not needed for one thing or another, and he isn't about to be tied down because of a few so-called bandits.
He's already encountered one group of them near one of the mines and had dealt with them when they had made the mistake of attempting to turn on him. This is when he addresses the Audentes at large, but he doesn't vacate the area quickly. After all, he hardly reached city limits before coming in contact with them. Perhaps there were more -- and so he hunts, lightsaber in hand but deactivated.
But the moment he hears or senses someone get to close to him, he will hold it out and threaten with its activation, regardless of who comes up on him.]
I am busy.
no subject
She couldn't let the pain of Han's death distract her, not now. Not when she needed to be careful that she didn't get in over her head starting a fight she wasn't ready for. She struggled to hold him back, but they were close enough now that she felt keenly aware of his breath; panic bubbled up in her stomach but she fought it down.
Rage and indignation, the pride that told her she owed him nothing, did battle with confusion and panic. It made her want to placate him, this outburst worse than she'd seen. He'd been appalled, surely, when she'd called it to her from the snow, but not— this. She remembered Maz's explanation of the lightsaber's history: it had belonged to Luke, and before that, his father. Was Kylo Ren afraid that she had met Skywalker, located him? Or was his fury something more? ]
Luke! [ She sputtered out, alarm winning out and prompting her to the only recourse she could estimate. ] It belonged to Luke Skywalker.
[ And she had found nightmares in it, down in Maz Kanata's basement. Premonitions of Kylo Ren, of rain and snow, of a row of dark masks and darker silhouettes. Of fire, and a city in the clouds.
Of her parents.
She shut out those thoughts as well, refused to let them cloud her vision. Then, she risked the imbalance of her stance to raise one leg and kick his knee out from under him. She staggered backwards, the force of his lean thrusting her back without the steady anchor of two feet below her, but she dropped her blade and dodged the downswing of his, dancing quickly aside. It was a frantic motion and marked her shift to the defensive. ]
no subject
She had found Luke, before or after he had managed to kill his father. (Something stirs in his gut when he thinks about it, forced aside by his single-minded focus on the other weapon) That had to mean that the Resistance had completed the map before the First Order could get to him, which meant that Rey was meant to become the last Jedi.
With his lightsaber.]
It belongs to me--
[Her kick connects while he'd been preparing to swipe outward, and as a result, he drops to one knee hard on top of the layers of his fabric armor. He staggers for a brief moment with the weight of his lightsaber, its quillon coming dangerously close to his own arm with how he had been forced to catch himself.
His face twists into a snarl, and Ren throws his free hand out with the intent of locking time around her, as he had in the forest of Takodana.]
Enough!
no subject
In her lifetime, Rey had owned two things. The broken helmet that she'd found in the ruins of an X-Wing battle over Jakku, and the doll she'd woven from stray fabric to imitate that helmet's owner, Captain Raeh. Everything else, she had built from scrap for necessity. They were not possessions so much as tools. But Luke's lightsaber had called to her in Maz Kanata's basement, had come to her on Starkiller Base, felt right gripped there in her palm. It was truly hers.
He could not take it from her.
Space froze around her, rigid and unrelenting, as firm a prison as it had been in the forest the first time she'd seen him, when he was a specter that haunted her nightmare visions upon first touching the lightsaber she carried now. If only she had found time to master it, he would be the one suffering. Instead, she could not help but feel she had hardly come anywhere at all in the months since then. Frustration ground out through her teeth, words failing her for the paralysis.
The panic in her expression turned to fury; she would not let him disable her this way, render her helpless like a child. There had to be a way to break the hold. To use the Force to fight back, as she had in the interrogation chamber.
She closed her eyes and reached out for him. ]
no subject
I have been patient. I have shown you mercy, when I otherwise would have been called to cut you down. And you dare raise that weapon to--
[He feels the brush of her mind, but this time he is ready. He stops his advance to instead focus on turning her attack back on her. Not this time. The veil around her slowly begins to fade with his split concentration, but he plans to remind her exactly what she is capable of.
There's a far off sound, the clashing of lightsabers. The Dark Side, the Light. I told you: its more complicated than that. Her own words, echoed back to her. The way Rey dances aside with a lightsaber other than the one she holds now, a dangerous purple of warning and dark robes about her. Some version of her knows exactly what path awaits her, and he is not about to let it go so easily. You can decide to come with me and turn your back on the Dark and the Light that have rejected you, or you can wait here for the darkness to rise up and drown you.
He cannot -- will not let her into his mind again. Twice was too much already. But the longer he focuses on forcing her to face the vision, the quicker the veil around her fades, until it ceases to be and she is released.]
no subject
Though a lightsaber cannot strike down destiny, it can cut down a man.
She slashes at him to force him away from her, not merely dissatisfied, but furious with his proximity and what he forces into her mind. With the swipe of her blade—for it was hers, it had called to her as though it had always been hers, and only now that Kylo Ren threatened that ownership did she realize that she never meant to merely hold it for Luke in the first place—she thrust him back with such great mental energy that it dizzied her as well. ]
I have never asked you for mercy. [ She growled out the words as though they insulted her: her aptitude, her pride, or her morals, she was not clear on which. More than likely the answer fell squarely between the three. ] I will never ask you for anything.
no subject
That said, she's too close to dodge it entirely. There's a brief shout of pain as the saber slices up his arm and across part of his chest, singing his robes and cauterizing skin beneath it on contact. He seethes only for a moment, eyes watering while he blinks past the pain in order to fix his grip and return her attack.
He comes in strong with a series of strikes meant to push her back twice as much as she had tried to push him, lacking grace in exchange for raw bulk and power. She'll be on the ground if he has his way -- and he'll walk away with that saber proudly.
Robes could be mended, skin would heal. But the stain on his pride will never leave him if he doesn't succeed here.]
Only because you are ignorant to how desperately you need it!
no subject
For every iota of satisfaction she feels in his cry of pain, equal amounts self-loathing rumble below the surface of her mind; she cannot feel gratified in another's pain without the latter, knowing what is coming for her. The future colors her present with a hazy gray, a lingering storm threatening on the horizon, warping her immediate perception.
If anyone was desperate, she concluded readily, it was him. Desperate for power. Desperate to prove himself. Desperate to defeat her. She would not give him any of it.
Her silent reserve directed her attention to defense, and she rallied quickly to raise her saber and catch his first few blows. The muscle in her thigh tightened, trying to hold her position against the force of his blows; years of scavenging on Jakku had not left her weak, by any means. But the persistence of his, yes, desperation forced her to stumble back.
The ground fell out under her. A pit in the sand, probably home to some subterranean creature. Her heel sank, her weight shifted, and she lost her balance as she leaned back in time with his last slash. The Force. She needed the Force. Luke's lightsaber wasn't enough. Even as she defended herself with it, Ren's final strike knocked her back and down.
The beam of her lightsaber died and she tumbled backwards in a somersault, anticipating the failure. She skidded to a stop with one hand perched against the ground, crouched. Aside from a few scrapes, she was unharmed. She seized the opportunity that left her with and continued her charge, launching herself toward him with Luke's saber aimed in an unpracticed jab that reeked of her experience with a quarterstaff rather than a blade. ]
no subject
He knew of her skill only from what he had seen when he invaded her mind, but its enough for him to know that she could not be wholly underestimated.
Still, the girl had a deathwish, challenging him when he had such a clear advantage.]
What will you do? Kill me?
[His arm comes down in a high arc to cleave downward and force her to one side or the other]
You will come apart.
no subject
She cannot dodge the lash of his tongue in the same way that she dodges the swings of his saber beam. If she killed him, did he not win? Succeed in turning her into the monster who acts out of unbridled rage that he seems deadset on convincing her that she is already? She would better serve herself dodging the lashes of his tongue than the beam of his saber, but it's not so easily done.
Rey skips up onto a rock formation by the mouth of the mine, stacked and forgotten, and brings an overhead slash down upon him from higher ground with a shout. ]
no subject
But she is heavier than he is anticipating with the high ground on her side. Just barely, he manages to parry her blow without scalding himself, but it forces him into an off-balance spin that leaves his back exposed to her when gravity wins the battle.
His arm comes up as he starts to turn, prepared to Force push her away--]
no subject
He trips. She wrenches her arm back. Rey's lightsaber cuts sparks out of the mineral-saturated dirt of the mine and burnt ozone fills her nose as her upward strike cleaves through him, seizing the opening. The plasma scores the cut with the fibers of his own singed robes, melding them with his skin in the same way that Poe's jacket had become a part of Finn. The flesh smoldered beneath.
The blow is close enough to spook her. Violent and reckless enough that were a lesser Force-user, she might have killed him. It tells them both that she has the capacity for it, the instinct. It forces beneath a harsh spotlight her intentions, begging her to decide if she really wants to. ]
no subject
But there's nothing to prepare for such a clean slice at his back. The many layers don't do anything to protect him -- he stumbles, breath shallow with pain and voice high as he catches himself on a rock. There's a brief stumble as his singed nerves win out over his fortitude.
His turn is swift -- damages both wounds he's managed to sustain out of recklessness without flinching. For a long moment, he stares with dark and heavy eyes and he waits. She's done him the favor of proving his point, even if she didn't take the final blow. Even still, injured, he does not press the fight -- he will not allow her a third hit by going on the immediate offensive. He doesn't quite straighten -- stayed hunched, robes smoking slightly, both hands white-knuckled under his gloves. There's no hiding it -- he's hurt and if he hadn't possessed the need to preserve what little dignity he had left, he'd be on one knee from the decisiveness of her strike.
They both know what she is capable of, but more importantly, Ren knows what he can't allow himself. His eyes move from her face to the saber, a deep loathing and jealousy plainly seen all over his face.
He says nothing. He only seethes, a gathering of dark and dangerous forces. A weight, deciding what was worth more -- mending his pride or forcing her hand.]
no subject
Quietly, she hoped for him to stay down, to accept the defeat, for fatigue crept down into her bones.
Finally, she dims the beam of her lightsaber, the blue light dying and giving way to the hellish glow shared by Kylo Ren's saber and the blood red of the setting sun. It reflects off the planes of her face. But she would not kill him, would not cross that line. It felt like failing Han Solo, but the alternative felt too much like failing herself. ]
It's mine.
[ And without saying more, she turned to leave, face against the dying light of the sun. ]